Oy Vey: Remember When it wasn't Cool to be an Anti-Semite

Photo Credit: Unknown (Contact me)

I seriously like Jews.

I mean, I'll pass on the Manishewitz, but in general, wow, I love those people.  Yeshua, of course, is my favorite.  He did die for me after all and indwells me by his Spirit. But, he is in good company.

As a goy-boy growing up in rural Oklahoma I was not afforded many opportunities for, well, schmoozing with the Chosen People, but as my world gloriously expands God is giving me more and more encounters with Jews of many backgrounds.  I'm getting opportunities for cultural learning, friendship and partnership.  Yiddish words and phrases in sitcoms are starting to make sense and I'm secretly (not so secret now, I guess) hoping for an invite to a pakka Purim celebration (okay, "pakka" is Hindi lingo rather than Yiddish, but old habits die hard. Would the Yiddish be echt?)

But what is going on today? Is it just me or is the mood changing?  Though I grew up with very little global exposure, I somehow imbibed a rather undiluted message about the Jews -- i.e. antisemitism is evil.

So why does it suddenly seem more okay to be antisemitic?  Consider the following short video taken of a man simply walking the streets of Paris as a Jew:



Are you kidding me?

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg with a seemingly growing number of terrorist threats and attacks directed towards Jews, consider:

The recent desecration of Jewish graves in France
The shooting at a synagogue in Denmark
The conspiracy and cover up regarding the massacre of Jews in Argentina

To mention just a few high-profile incidents.

It's enough to prompt Israel's PM, Benjamin Netanyahu to call for Jews to come "home" en masse to the Promised Land.  A fact that's sure to tempt a few of you to dust off some of your old Jenkins-Lahaye novels (you know exactly where they are, don't you?).

Of course, it get's even more meshuggah.  On the one hand, you have Hollywood legend Shirley MacLaine writing some really stupid stuff about karma and the holocaust.  Her speculation that the millions of Jews slaughtered by the Nazis may have had it coming to them due to bad deeds committed in a previous life was newsworthy for about five minutes.  But, hey, Vanilla Ice is trending on Twitter so ... at least our priorities are in order.

Swing the pendulum from the famous to the obscure and you find this bizarre story of a Iowa woman who  was apparently trying to convert a Jewish neighbor to Christianity through the old beat-them-till-they-convert method.

Oy gevalt!

And then there are my own evangelical tribesmen (and tribeswomen) who in their zeal to always be attacking everything that U.S. President Barak Obama says, rushed to defend the Crusades in response to the President's suggestion that they might have been kind of a bad thing.  The standard defense posted and re-posted especially in the Facebook-sphere went something like this:

"Silly Obama, don't you know that the Crusades were essentially defensive struggles against extremist Islamic powers bent on the conquest of Europe?  Gosh, you really are a Muslim aren't you?"

And before you go about comfortably dismissing me to some ideological camp that you've taught yourself to ignore, let me say that I begrudgingly voted for McCain and No One in the past two presidential elections, respectively.  Not that it's any of your business.

But look here.  Putting aside whatever defensive motives may or may not have been at play in the various Crusades (and to what extent those motives were shared by the actual Crusaders) for a moment, I must ask.  Have we really forgotten how many Jews were killed by Christians during the Crusades? I blogged a bit about this recently (Here is the link in case you missed it).  I don't understand how this isn't a no-brainer for my fellow Jesus-followers.  The Crusades resulted in the massacre of thousands of Jews.  They don't get to be defended.  Why isn't that the end of the story?

So, here I am, scratching my head. Praying. And wondering what good a little voice like mine can do in this context.  Should I start a #Jewishlivesmatter or #JesuisHebreu? But leveraging trendiness doesn't go very far.

Pondering.

For now, I feel that I want to say without qualification that I genuinely love and admire the Jews.  As a follower of Jesus, I know that they are a people greatly honored by the God I worship.  I owe my spiritual heritage to their stewardship of faith and the Scriptures.  As a student of people and culture, I am intrigued by the festivals, the language, the religion, the history, the music and pretty much all things Jewish.  As a human, I rejoice in our shared humanity and know that I'm richer in relationship to Jews and poorer when separated.

Those who know me well, will know how sincere I am when I say that I would love for more Jews to move into my neighborhood.  If the man in the video above came walking by my house -- or up to my door -- he would find a warm welcome.

Join me in praying for peace for the Jewish diaspora wherever they live in the world.

Don't Gross Out the World - International Dining Quiz

The link below is to a cool, flash-based quiz on international dining etiquette.  I love it and think I'll use it for training. Check it out:

http://www.fekids.com/img/kln/flash/DontGrossOutTheWorld.swf

That is all.

Meet Cultural Intelligence Ambassador, Wilbur Sargunaraj - @wilburworldwide

Today, I want to ensure that all of my readers have been properly introduced to my new friend, Mr. Wilbur Sargunaraj.  Wilbur is known around the world as "India's First YouTube Star" and has several million views on his YouTube channel to prove it.  He's gained his "Simple Superstar" status first through great comedy and music, but I am discovering that this is only the tip of the iceberg for Mr. Wilbur!

What I love most about Wilbur is his role as a global ambassador for "Cultural Intelligence" (CQ).  CQ is a concept that comes from David Livermore, who's book Serving with Eyes Wide Open is something I've recommended for years.  In his passion to bring equality and unity in the context of an increasingly globalized and diverse world, Wilbur is traveling the world on a mission to raise up "First Class" world citizens who know how to engage cross-culturally and treasure people from all backgrounds.

As I've been getting to know Mr. Wilbur recently, I have been delighted to find a man of deep humility who is passionately seeking to use his gifts to make the world a better place.  I find the Lord giving me a deep appreciation and respect for the work he is doing and know that you will also.

Here's a quick introduction "Wilburwood" --

Wilbur's most popular music video: Love Marriage:


A couple very popular CQ videos on how to use Indian, European and Japanese toilets (worlds apart):


The trailer for Wilbur's upcoming feature film, Simple Superstar:


And, most importantly, get a taste of Wilbur's heart for critical global issues by watching "Why Poverty":


I would also encourage you to check out Mr. Wilbur on Facebook and Twitter.

Responding to John Piper's Response to "The Insider Movement"

The following brief clip has been dubbed "Piper Responds to the Insider Movement".  I have noticed it being kicked around the internet.  I know that it isn't popular to critique John Piper (especially not fun for a big fan like myself), but I feel it is important for someone to do so.  Take a look at the video (about 6 minutes) and then my responses below:

Piper Responds to the Insider Movement from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

There is No Insider Movement
First of all, you can’t “respond to the Insider movement”. It isn't one thing.  This is a foundational problem underlying so much anti-contextualization rhetoric.  Consciously or unconsciously, opponents have created a kind of straw-man that they call “The Insider Movement” as if we all have membership cards or secret handshakes.  But, this simply isn’t the case.  There is much variety of philosophy, theology, missiology and praxis among those who pursue contextualization in mission.  I have found the Cape Town Commitment's statement to be extremely well-crafted and helpful:

So called ‘insider movements’ are to be found within several religions. These are groups of people who are now following Jesus as their God and Saviour. They meet together in small groups for fellowship, teaching, worship and prayer centred around Jesus and the Bible while continuing to live socially and culturally within their birth communities, including some elements of its religious observance. This is a complex phenomenon and there is much disagreement over how to respond to it. Some commend such movements. Others warn of the danger of syncretism. Syncretism, however, is a danger found among Christians everywhere as we express our faith within our own cultures. We should avoid the tendency, when we see God at work in unexpected or unfamiliar ways, either (i) hastily to classify it and promote it as a new mission strategy, or (ii) hastily to condemn it without sensitive contextual listening. 

In the spirit of Barnabas who, on arrival in Antioch, ‘saw the evidence of the grace of God’ and ‘was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord,’ we would appeal to all those who are concerned with this issue to: (1) Take as their primary guiding principle the apostolic decision and practice: ‘We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God’ and (2) Exercise humility, patience and graciousness in recognizing the diversity of viewpoints, and conduct conversations without stridency and mutual condemnation.

Of course, Piper prefaces his comments about IM by saying “this is what I mean by it” and then providing a description of an IM that includes genuine followers of Christ staying in the mosque, continuing to read the Quran (possibly as inspired), self-identifying as Muslims, etc.  This is certainly a kind of IM, but it is also pretty misleading to not clearly articulate that there is a tremendous amount of variety and difference of opinion on these particulars.  Not everyone who pursues contextualization in the Muslim context would practice these particular forms.  However, by referring to this as a response to “The Insider Movement” (see point 1), there is the suggestion (intentional or not) that this is really what all insider movements are about.

Normal Christianity = Western Christianity
Piper correctly points out that an American banker who comes to know Christ has to change very little of his external cultural forms in order to enter the American Christian community.  Piper says that this is because the American culture is so “uniform”.   What he neglects to point out is just how much of an “insider movement” the American church has been all along.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not suggesting that American church forms have been contextualized to the culture with a tremendous amount of intentionality or missiological insight.  But nevertheless, the contextualization is clearly present.  What American Christians think of as “normal” or “standard” forms of church life or Christian spirituality are forms, rituals, holidays, symbols and theologies that have been either entirely derived from or else heavily conformed to the prevailing culture.  This is simply beyond dispute.

This points to one of the most significant underlying faulty premises of the critics of insider movements.  They presume the orthodoxy and the normative nature of the American/Western Church (and its forms), setting it up as the standard against which all deviations are naturally viewed with skepticism.  They hope to frame the debate as “Normal Christianity” versus “The Insider Movement” and they are largely successful because they are not challenged to demonstrate that the American Church has really arrived at exactly what Biblical faith in Christ should look like.  Moreover, they are not challenged to defend biblically their own approach to cross-cultural mission which we may accurately deem as “outsider movements” – i.e. the systematic extraction of new followers of Christ from their birth communities and colonization of new lands/cultures with Western brands of Christian expression.

Insider Movements vs. Outsider Movements

Piper’s problem is clearly with particular forms that are sometimes used by some IM proponents.  He mentions several things that he doesn’t think are good ideas.  Personally, I know enough about this debate within a Hindu context to know how unwise it is to weigh in on the particulars of the Muslim-context debate.  But, I wish Piper were willing to clearly articulate that “staying in one’s birth community” is a fundamentally good and Biblical ideal.  I wish he were better about distinguishing disagreements regarding particular forms as a fundamentally different debate than the question about “insider” versus “outsider” movements. 

The C-Scale: Here We Go Again

Piper gives credence here to the infamous C1-Cwhatever framing of contextualization debate.  I have expressed elsewhere that I believe John Travis’ scale to be built upon faulty premises.  In short, the scale presumes that rightward/upward movement eventually leads to syncretism, heresy, etc. (whether that happens at C3, C4, C5 or C16 is debated but it certainly happens).  Further, it presumes that leftward/downward movement is inherently safe, orthodox, and God pleasing.  However, people who take the time to actually understand syncretism and heresy and not just hurl them around as epithets will realize that neither requires intentional efforts of contextualization in order to exist.  What is more, the C-scale cannot at all account for the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ (either as a historic reality or as a model for cross-cultural engagement).  These inherent deficiencies to the C-scale call us to discard it as some kind of prescriptive tool to determine “how far we should go”.  Actually, I don’t think this was Travis’s purpose to begin with.  Thus, Piper’s statement about “drawing the line” at C4 isn’t helpful because it assumes the validity of the scale.  What I wish he would have said was something like, “I am unabashedly for the ‘staying in’ trajectory of insider movements, but certain forms that some of them adopt seem to be problematic.  For example . . .”  Further, I wish he’d say something like, “I am unabashedly against the extraction and colonization tactics of outsider movement proponents.”

Is All Persecution Against Christians Persecution for Christ's Sake?

Piper mentions that “all the Muslim converts” that he met at Cape Town 2010 were very upset about insider movements.  First, let me say that I was there too and that Piper clearly didn’t talk to all of them.  In fact one of the plenary speakers was a Muslim-background disciple of Jesus who even presented an insider movement model.  Piper also mentions the persecution argument.  Now this is a very sensitive thing, to be sure.  But let me just say that we should not assume that every Christian who is persecuted is actually persecuted because of Jesus.  I want to be clear again to say that I cannot comment about the particulars of the Muslim context.  But in my (non-Muslim) context, most (not all) of the persecution that we observe against Christians has nothing at all to do with Jesus except in the minds of those being persecuted.  I want to also say that I have never met a practitioner of contextualization who is motivated by a desire to avoid genuine, anti-Jesus persecution.  Such people probably exist and I would strongly oppose such motivation.  In my personal experience, the IM road has led to increasing persecution as those followers of Jesus who seek to stay in their birth community are attacked by outsider movement Christians.  Let me be clear: there is real persecution and plenty of it which is the shameful fruit of rebellion against the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  But we also need to admit that there is plenty of wicked persecution that emerges from all kinds of other motives.

Honesty, Integrity and Biblical Faithfulness

Piper says that “honesty, integrity, and Biblical faithfulness” should be our guidelines.  I couldn’t agree more.  However, too many opponents of contextualization overtly condemn IMs as lacking integrity and honesty.  I reject this idea.  As a cross-cultural worker pursuing a kind of IM, I am motivated strongly by a desire to communicate with the lost with more clarity, truthfulness, and integrity.  I believe that outsider movements are inherently dishonest (though not always intentionally) because they communicate through their methods of colonialism and extraction that the gospel and Christ-following is something other than what it really is. 

Piper says that he wants to hear from “our missionaries” who he believes to be the real experts on this issue.  I appreciate that.  But I hope that Piper doesn’t simply mean that he wants to listen to missionaries that agree with him and then amplify their voices.  Further the notion of creating a policy that draws the line at “C4” is unwise for the reasons I have already stated.  If there are particular forms that his church wants to oppose, they should make those decisions themselves, but please discard the notion that “C4” or “C5” or “The Insider Movement” are tangible and fixed things that can be prohibited.  That’s just not true. 

A Final Thought

Let me close by saying that I appreciate much of what Piper brings to the Church and that I think his statement here is charitable, humble, and marked by wisdom.  I don’t think he fully grasps this issue and the particular nuances that I have articulated above, but he admits as much at the beginning of the video.  It is problematic however that so many opponents of IMs are flooding the internet with a lot of misinformation, bigotry, ignorance, personal attacks, and other general silliness.  And everyone who “retweets” such drivel is culpable. This isn’t a simple issue.  And there are a tremendous number of people who are talking about it that should rather be listening and learning.  Actually, we could all do with a little more listening and learning. 

Flatland, Lineland, Spaceland and Cross-cultural Mission

Recently, I completed an old classic novel by Edwin Abbot entitled Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.  I mention it here because (and maybe I see missiology where it is not) I found some interesting insights of missiological significance.  In short, the book is written as a memoir of a "square" that lives in "Flatland" - the world of 2-dimensions.  Most of the book is spent describing this world to those of us in "Spaceland" who exist in three (or four really . . . we'll talk later) dimensions.  This, itself is fascinating -- yes, even to someone like myself who tends to recoil at the mere mention of the word mathematics.  The Square's descriptions of life and society in Flatland bring to mind innumerable issues related to social justice, class and caste, gender roles, government, and much more.

But it was the last chapters of the book that really made me love Flatland.  I will avoid any spoilers here, but suffice it to say that the chapter describing communication between the Square in Flatland with the king of "Lineland" is simply full of terrific cross-cultural insights.  This chapter is then followed by concluding chapters which are much more explicitly missiological as the "gospel of three-dimensions" is proclaimed by a sphere entering the home of the Square in Flatland.  But, I'll leave it there.

I would heartily commend to you Abbot's classic regardless of your interest in mission (unless you prefer a moving story which require little reflection).  However, if you are into missiology, I would put Flatland right next to Alice in Wonderland on my list of great, unexpected missiological texts.  Check it out!

[HERE IS A FREE PDF WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF FLATLAND]

On our Similarity or Dissimilarity with the World (Guest Blog by Katherine Lorance)

[Today's post is written by a special guest to the blog, my wife, Katherine Lorance.  This is the second installment in a new, potentially long-term series entitled "On our Contextualization".]


One common objection to intentional contextualization centers around the perceived loss of distinctiveness to following Christ.  The argument goes that since people who don’t follow Christ do XYZ, people who do follow Christ should not do XYZ.  Often, XYZ-ing is seen as inherently sinful.  Other times, XYZ-ing is seen as so prevalent among people who don’t follow Christ that, it is argued, people who follow Christ must avoid XYZ-ing in order to demonstrate that they in fact are different.

On the other hand, someone who pursues contextualization looks at a person who doesn’t follow Christ doing XYZ and asks, “Is there some way XYZ can be done to worship Christ?”  Sometimes the answer is no because XYZ-ing is clearly prohibited in Scripture (for instance, you cannot hate your brother in Christ as an act of worship to Jesus).  But what about the other times?

Even the most ardent opponent to intentional contextualization must agree that sometimes doing XYZ can please God.  After all, people who don’t follow Christ eat, sleep, and breathe, but no one is suggesting that people who follow Christ stop eating, sleeping, and breathing.  People who don’t follow Christ pray, give thanks, and sing in worship, but no one would ever tell the Church to stop praying, giving thanks or singing.  On the contrary, the Church is exhorted in Scripture to pray to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, and sing to the Lord.  It is important for opponents to the pursuit of contextualization to realize that they recognize on some level that similarity alone is not enough to condemn a specific action.

I recently read 1 Kings 18 and I think the account of Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel is one Biblical example that demonstrates what distinctiveness is necessary.  Elijah and the crowd of Baal priests each prepared one bull and arranged some wood.  They did so at the same location and on the same day.  They both called out to the one they worshipped.  Note that the Israelites who observed all this and the prophets of Baal were not at all confused as to whether Elijah was worshipping Baal or worshipping the Lord.  Unlike the 450 prophets, Elijah did not cry out to Baal but to the Lord.  The fire of the Lord consumed Elijah’s offering as an answer to the prayer “that the people may know that you, O Lord, are God.”  What grieved the Lord about the prophets of Baal’s sacrifice was not the bull, the wood, the location, or the day – which were the same as Elijah’s -- but the fact that those people failed to worship Him.  The two sacrifices offered were deliberately similar outwardly but the spiritual attitudes of those offering the sacrifices were completely different.

Some of those concerned with specific Christ-centered contextualized practices being too similar to the practices of people who do not follow Christ seem to emphasize outward actions at the expense of inner attitudes.  In order for the global Church to cooperate and grow to maturity, those who are concerned with the pursuit of contextualization need to accept that the “that’s what the prophets of Baal do” argument is insufficient.  Yes, intentionally contextualized practices should be carefully examined in the light of Scripture – as all of our practices should be, if we desire to be living sacrifices to our Lord.  Let us be careful, though, to avoid dismissing or belittling the unseen turning of hearts toward the Triune God.

The Lovely Strangeness of Matt Soerens: "Seeing Our Immigrant Neighbors"

Matthew Soerens is a strange chap -- an American, white suburbanite who has taken to an incarnational-type of life among the immigrant poor here in the seemingly prosperous western burbs of Chicagoland. Pretty cool actually. As I have often said, "When their bedbugs become your bedbugs, then you are doing something right." I mean, I'm not saying that Matt has bedbugs . . . but, well . . . nothing.

Anyway, I like what Matt has contributed in the article linked below entitled "Seeing Our Immigrant Neighbors". "Seeing" is indeed a critical first step in faithful missional engagement among diasporas. Only when we learn to see can we move on to faithful prayer, relationship, advocacy, incarnation, discipleship and the like. I hope you'll read the article below and pay attention to what Matt is saying.  It is, in my opinion, flowing out of genuine and sacrificial experience.  Also, I'd love for you to share in the comment section of your experiences about learning to see immigrants among you. What are some of the best ideas you know of for helping others to see them?

Seeing Our Immigrant Neighbors: "In DuPage County, where I live, about one in five residents is foreign-born, and one in four speaks a language other than English at home. In many neighborhoods, like mine, a large apartment complex easily visible from a major thoroughfare but never noticed by many white suburbanites, the vast majority of the residents are either immigrants or their children. I have started to realize immigrants are all around me, not just in my neighborhood, but at the grocery store, our local public elementary school, and at the Laundromat."

A Mad, Missiological Tea Party

Of late, I've been trying to consume more classic literature.  I'm working through several pieces now and hope that as I complete them, I will be able to offer at least a little reflection -- hopefully a missiological one, to share with you.  I feel I need to make myself do that for the sake of my own self-discipline.  Plus, it makes me look smart.  Right?

Well, my first test comes as I have just reached the end of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.   The Disney film version had done a pretty good job of keeping me away from the Carroll's original work for most of my life.  It was learning how easily I could read it on my phone (thanks Google Books) that motivated me to dig in.  Overall, I found the book to be silly, funny, and very clever.  But no one needs me to vouch for Carroll's classic in that regard.  The key question of this blog for Wonderland is whether or not we might draw up from the rabbit hole any missiological insights.

In my experience in reading through the book, it was somewhere towards the end of chapter seven, "A Mad Tea Party", that I actually did begin to think about Carroll's work missiologically.  At the end of Alice's rather ridiculous encounter with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, she marches off in disgust at what she has interpreted as unbearable rudeness.  Looking back over her shoulder, hoping they would call her to come back and rejoin the tea party, she catches a final glimpse of them, now trying to cram their friend, the Dormouse into a teapot.  The picture provided in Carroll's original work is quite hilarious.  At this, Alice promises herself:

"At any rate I'll never go there again!  It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life."


Now, I don't think for a minute that Carroll was trying to say anything much about cultural anthropology, but that scene of Alice storming away from a frustrating and confusing tea party with people she deemed to be crazy, stupid and uncivilized is just about one of the best illustrations I've seen of what happens when we cross cultures.  More often than not, we go in with a certain set of unexamined expectations, definitions, presumptions and rarely ever consider that those to whom we go have their own ideas which may be very different. We may think that we are communicating one thing, but it is received as something entirely different.  Let's take a quick look at Alice's introduction to the Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse:

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it; a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. "Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse," thought Alice; "only as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind."


Immediately upon entering the cross-cultural environment, Alice begins sizing up the scene and interpreting what she sees according to her own worldview.  For example, she sees the Dormouse being used as a cushion and assumes that this is an act of unkindness on the part of the Hatter and Hare.  This process of interpretation, of course, can hardly be avoided.  However, the reflective cross-cultural practioner must be aware that it is happening.  Alice shows signs of this, checking her judgement a bit and granting that since the Dormouse is asleep, he may indeed be plenty comfortable.

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it. "No room! No room!" They cried out when they saw Alice coming.  "There's plenty of room!" said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.


"Have some wine," the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.


Alice looked all around the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. "I don't see any wine," she remarked.


"There isn't any," said the March Hare.


"Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it," said Alice angrily.


"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited," said the March Hare.


I see here a great illustration of cross-cultural conflict.  Alice, by disregarding the cries of "no room", commits a cultural blunder that is interpreted by the hosts as rude and, as we would discover later in the chapter, actually creates a hardship for them.  Alice, completely unaware of her mistake focuses instead on pointing out what they have done wrong.  She gets angry and is the first to openly criticize.  When confronted with her mistake, she dismisses it and essentially blames them for causing the problem:

"I didn't know it was your table," said Alice: "it's laid for a great many more than three".

In Alice's mind, whatever mistake she may have made was the result of the actions of the hosts.  Her actions were only reasonable.  Anyone else would have done the same thing.

Well, it goes on like that for several pages.  Some points of the tea party are very rich indeed from a cross-cultural perspective.  Again, that final, funny scene of the Hatter and Hare stuffing the Dormouse into a teapot says it all.  Alice, the outsider, storming away in a huff. Convinced of her rightness.  Frustrated with the hosts' foreignness.  Looking at their seemingly inexplicable actions with contempt.  "The stupidest tea party!"

I'd encourage any of you that are engaged in training cross-cultural workers to take a look at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and especially the chapter about the "Mad Tea Party".  And, if you do end up using it in any training exercises or if you have any insights from the chapter you'd like to share, please comment below.

Buffalo Without Borders and Refugee Comfort Zones

Came across an article promoting a refugee cultural event in Buffalo, NY called “Buffalo Without Borders”.  The article appeared recently in Buffalo Rising a kind of online city guide.  First, I applaud the author for trying to encourage the general populace of that city to get out and get to know a bit more about their newest neighbors – the thousands of refugees that call that cold city home.  I’ve been to Buffalo several times and can attest that there has been a significant refugee population there for a long time.  But, there was one line in the article that I think ought to be challenged a bit.  The author writes: “This past summer was the first time that I saw some of the Burmese population starting to explore Elmwood Avenue, and that was a welcome sign that meant that they were beginning to explore outside of their comfort zones.”  I take issue with the notion that people who have been forcibly and violently removed from their country, have lived for years in refugee camps, and have been rather unwillingly resettled in some of the worst, crime-ridden neighborhoods of freezing Buffalo, NY are just “beginning to explore outside their comfort zones”.  What comfort zones?  Their bed-bug infested apartments?  The public aid office?  The crummy job only the lucky ones get to work?  Beyond this, Burmese refugees have been in Buffalo since at least 2007.  The notion that they haven’t visited downtown Buffalo yet is incredulous.  The significance of the author’s statement lies in the fact that this past summer was the first time he noticed them there.  It wasn’t the first time they were there. 

Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity « Flexner Book Club Blog

Below, I link to an article by Jessica Lee that relates to refugees and mental health. I think this is a huge issue and I applaud Lee for the challenge that she is issuing to health care providers who find themselves treating refugees. I certainly believe she is on the right track. Typical Western psychological diagnoses probably miss the mark in refugee cases. Lee suggests insights derived from Freud which effectively pushes back against a overly simplistic diagnosis such as anxiety or depression. However, Freudian analyses should be expected to likewise fall short as they too arise from a specifically Western cultural context. Western sociologists and psychologists will have a hard time fully grasping what’s going on with refugees as long as they don’t wrestle well with the specific anthropological and diasporological dynamics relevant to their cases. For example, Lee's article doesn’t make mention of survival and dependency issues and the male-emasculating effects of camp life. There is no mention of the influence of folk Hinduism, high-context communication, or social collectivism on Bihan’s situation. So again, I think she is on to something and I applaud it. Health professionals must be challenged to go deeper and think more critically about these cases if wellness is truly desired. Of course, as is often the case (wink, wink), getting a missiologist to weigh in on things can just really help everyone all around.

Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity « Flexner Book Club Blog: "Externalized Pathology and Internalized Identity
by Jessica Lee
I work with refugees in Philadelphia. Butler’s chapter Melancholy Gender/Refused Identification makes me reconceptualize my clients’ struggles in the resettlement process. Butler expands on Freud’s idea of melancholia into a discussion of melancholic incorporation, arguing that identity results from disavowed grief. She states, “the lost object is, in that sense, made coextensive with the ego itself” (p. 247). Many of the refugees I encounter exhibit melancholia—where they are “unwilling to avow and hence grieve” the loss of their homeland. For these refugees, perhaps melancholia is what enables them to internalize their national identity."

Why our Worship Must be Multicultural

I'm doing some great reading today on diaspora missions. Came across the following fantastic passage.  Enjoy!

Our music and our worship must be multicultural, not simply because our society is multicultural, but because the future from which God is calling us is multicultural – Not just so that those from other cultures may feel at home among us but also so that we may feel at home in God’s future – Because like John of Patmos, our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.  Because we know and we believe that on that great waking up morning when the stars begin to fall, when we gather at the river where the angel feet have trod, we shall all, from all nations and tribes and peoples and languages, we shall all sing without ceasing, “Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee, casting down our golden crowns before the glassy sea, cherubim and seraphim, Japanese and Swahili, American and European, Cherokee and Ukrainian, falling down before thee, who wert, and art, and evermore shall be!  Amen.”

-          Justo Gonzalez on Revelation 5:9

      If you are interested in reading more from Gonzalez, the above quote came from his book For the Healing of the Nations.

A Biblical Definition of Stealing

I like to compile definitions of familiar terms from looking at the whole of Scripture.  I often find myself doing this when teaching the Bible through a translator.  I find that important often because the terms can have slightly different nuances of meaning from one language to another.  So, by looking at the whole Bible on a topic, I can be very clear about what I'm trying to say and don't have to worry as much about what is getting lost in translation.  Moreover, the process is actually very helpful to me as it invariably expands my own understanding of the term as well.

Today, I am working on a Bible study on the 8th command, "Do not steal" for our Nepali Sunday School program. I will be meeting tonight with our three Nepali Bible teachers, who are still relatively new believers and will be encountering this subject in the Bible for the first time.  So, I began my preparation by going through the whole of Scripture to seek out a full, Biblical definition of "stealing."  This way, I will not have to worry about how the Nepali term "चोराइ" relates to the English "steal".  I can instead focus on exactly what the Bible is speaking out against.  The following is the definition that I have arrived at:


To steal is to either dishonestly take what does not belong to you or to unjustly withhold what belongs to someone else.  This includes the property or wages of another, offerings to God, and even justice and compassion to the poor.  The Bible calls us to live in an opposite way, doing honest work, sharing what we have with those in need, and giving generously and cheerfully to God.

(Ex. 20:15, Gen. 31:30, Gen. 44:8, Lev. 6:1-5, Lev. 19:11-13, Mal. 3:7-10, Ps. 35:10, Pr. 22:16, 22-23, Isa. 10:1-2, Eph. 4:28)

Okay, back to study.  I know it is a bit random today.  But, thought I'd share anyway.  Be blessed in this new year!

The Oslo Coalition's Anti-Contextualization Stance: My Rebuttal

While in Cape Town for the Lausanne Congress, there were numerous individuals and groups that distributed information of different types.  This was a basically unofficial activity that didn't necessarily reflect views being put forth by the Lausanne Movement.  One of those pieces was an 8-page document entitled "Missionary Activity and Human Rights: Recommended Ground Rules for Missionary Activity." The piece was produced by The Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief.  I excitedly snatched it up because I thought that the idea of a code of ethics for missions was a good one.

I have since gone through the document a few times and have found that while in some places it has value, it ultimately doesn't seek to reflect a Biblical world view and doesn't hold the extension of Christ's Kingdom and fame among the nations as its primary impetus. At best, the document provides something of a starting point upon which to build, but it is major reconstruction that is needed and not just fine tuning.  If anyone knows of a truly Christian document like this, do tell.  Short of that, I feel the Lausanne Covenant and Manila Manifesto, while not seeking to do exactly the same thing, are far superior to the Oslo statement (we are all anxiously awaiting the Cape Town Commitment).

Today, I did want to highlight one article that I found especially objectionable in the Oslo statement.  It comes at part 2.1.2 bullet #2:

"The missionary organization should be careful in adopting terminology, rituals and customs from other religions, so as not to create misunderstandings about its identity. It should not attempt to achieve acceptance through adopting the outward appearance of other religions."

I find this to be a clear anti-contextualization statement that reflects a fundamental ignorance of issues related to culture, contextualization, and missiology in general.  Let me explain a bit.

1. On the notion of "adopting" terms, rituals, and customs "from" other religions -- Here is where the ignorance about culture and religion becomes clear.  The writers seem to be under the impression that certain religions can claim a kind of ownership over terminology, rituals or customs.  But this is utterly false. Whether we're speaking of circumcision or Sanskrit, incense or images, such things must not be considered the domain of any single religious group.  Rather, these are inherently communication tools - signs, symbols, and ceremonies that are designed to carry and express meaning from person to person and person to God. One should not assume that a different understanding of the nature of God requires a different means of communication. That is, perhaps my view changes as to which Scripture is truly divine in origin - from say the Vedas to the Bible. I may nevertheless still find that the use of Sanskrit mantras is the best means of memorizing and meditating upon that scripture.

2. On the notion of creating "misunderstandings about its identity" -- First, this phrase is somewhat demeaning.  It seems to communicate the image of a conniving and cunning Western missionary who sinisterly dupes the uneducated and unsophisticated savages, tricking them into religious conversion.  I have not found my non-Western friends to be so easily confused.  What is more, the pursuit of contextualization, far from being a strategy to confuse, is motivated fundamentally by a desire to improve and clarify communication.  By avoiding the unnecessary and unbiblical introduction of foreign religious externals, missionaries are better able to locate Christian identity where it belongs - in the heart.

3. On adopting the "outward appearance" -- Contextualization is not rooted in an attempt to adopt the outward appearance of another religion.  Rather, it is rooted in the imitation of Christ's incarnation.  That is, the contextualizer seeks, as far as is possible, to dwell among a particular cultural context as a full member of that culture. This has implications for the way one dresses, eats, relates to others, etc.  But it also has tremendous implications for the way one expresses, practices, and communicates the Christian faith.  To the unsophisticated eye, this may look like a missionary is adopting the "outward appearance" of Islam, Hinduism, or whatever. But the true, Christ-imitating contextualizer is rather seeking to adopt a people as his or her own including their means of verbal and non-verbal, spatial, ritual, corporate, individual, and chronological communication. This is done so as to more faithfully and clearly communicate the hope and wholeness of Jesus Christ.

Many thanks for reading. I would sincerely enjoy reading your feedback in the comment section. Blessings!

Noah in Cross-Cultural Context (Pt.5): Applying Biblical Narratives

Now for my 5^th and final installment of reflections on preaching Noah cross-culturally at TriEak Parmeshwar Mandali (TPM), the Nepali-speaking church that I pastor in the Chicago area. 

If you remember, I preached through Noah over the course of 2 Sundays.  Having used both improvisational drama and group reading to tell and retell the story, during the second Sunday I was ready to give a couple key applications and principles from the text.   Whenever I prepare to preach narratively, I usually seek to derive applications/principles by asking a number of key questions:

1. What does this narrative tell us about God?
2. What does this narrative tell us about life and how to live in a way that pleases God?
3. Does this narrative say anything that is especially relevant to the cultural context of my audience? (What will they readily see/hear/understand that I may not?)
4. Does the Bible anywhere provide an infallible application/interpretation for this narrative?

(If you have other helpful questions, please leave them in the comment section)

I took this approach to the narrative of Noah.  Below, I will share only the summary of what I came up with (note that I already shared some applications from this story during my first sermon):

1. God, by his nature, is committed to the eradication of evil and the salvation of the faithful.  I will not get into all this here, but I recommend looking to Isaiah 54:9-10 and Ezekiel 14.
2. The Noah story illustrates for us the impact of one faithful person on their entire household.  That is, Noah’s faith influenced his wife and children leading to their salvation as well.
3. Keeping in mind the fact that there are those in our Nepali church in “mixed faith” households (some Christ-followers and some not), I encouraged them to be encouraged by Noah’s example.  To have faith and patiently follow God’s will in the context of their families.  I encouraged them not to give up on their relatives who were not yet following Christ.  Since I have had a similar experience myself, I encouraged them by my own testimony.
4. Finally, the Bible does provide a kind of application of the Noah story (that is, it provides another one that we’ve yet to mention).  1 Peter 3:20-21 connects this narrative with the subject of baptism, providing a great opportunity to teach about this topic from Peter’s epistle.

You may also have noticed that over the course of my two messages, I made reference to many Biblical references to Noah occurring outside of Genesis.  I have found that this is always a helpful way to interpret a Biblical story.  How do the apostles and prophets interpret and apply the narratives of Scripture – always a great place to start.

Noah in Cross-Cultural Context (Pt.4): How does the Story Sound to Them?

Well, back to my reflections on preaching Noah cross-culturally at TriEak Parmeshwar Mandali (TPM), the Nepali-speaking church that I pastor in the Chicago area.  This is part 4, if you’re counting.

 

If you remember, I preached through Noah over the course of 2 Sundays.  We used improvisational drama to aid our story-telling during the first week.  However, I knew that we would need to do a quick recounting of the story during the second Sunday as well.  I want to share today how we did that and a couple considerations.

I began my preparation by looking at the Chronological Bible Storying version of the Noah story in Nepali that has been produced by Orality Strategies.  At first, I thought I would simply play the MP3 of this story for the congregation as a quick way to review the narrative.  However, as I looked at the Orality Strategies (OS) version of the story, I noticed some potential trouble spots.

The first is that the OS version doesn’t say anything about Noah’s faith.  I understand that this is in keeping with the Genesis version of the story.  However, I think that a fuller Biblical understanding of Noah requires us to at least mention Noah’s faith (Heb. 11:7).  Plus, I feel the concept of faith needs to be emphasized as much as possible.  This is perhaps not a concern particular to Nepalis, Hindus, or South Asians; but it is easy for me to imagine someone listening to the Noah story for the first time and assuming that Noah was chosen because of his sinlessness. 

To remedy this, I edited the text of the OS Noah story to include a sentence that (translated from Nepali) goes something like this, “In that generation there was one man who had faith in God’s name. His name was Noah.”

The second issue revolved around the issue of “eating blood.” You may not remember, but towards the end of the Noah account in Genesis, God grants that Noah can eat animals just as he had previously been able to eat plants.  However, God gives him the command that he shouldn’t eat meat with its “lifeblood still in it” (Gen. 9:4).  Interestingly enough, the composers of the OS version of the Noah story decided that in summarizing four chapters of Biblical text that it was important to include this command.  Well, they’ve not actually included the command, but interpreted it as, “When you kill them for food, do not eat their blood.”

Believe it or not, this can pose a significant problem in your Bible storying to Bhutanese and Nepali peoples.   The subject of eating blood is actually a point of tension and controversy between Nepali Christians and Hindus.  Some Hindus use blood to make a kind of soup in generally believe that it is good for your health.  On the other hand, I’ve heard Christians claim that this is a Satanic practice that one must give up in order to follow Jesus.  Knowing that this controversy was real, I decided to remove the line about not eating blood from the summary we used.  I felt that, in all likelihood, if I left it in, that would be the only issue people wanted to focus on and we would miss the larger and more significant points of the Biblical story.  I thought it better to save the “eating blood” controversy for another time.

So, my revised version of the Noah story is here.  Please note that I’m not revising the Bible, I’m revising a summary of Noah’s story for chronological Bible storying.  If you don’t know the difference between storying and reading the Bible outloud, I suggest taking a look at this site.

Let me close by articulating clearly an important lesson in all this.  As you communicate the story of the Scripture to your friends from other cultures, take time to carefully and prayerfully consider how the story will sound to them. This will be challenging to do, but it is essential.  It isn’t always a bad thing for the Biblical story you share to be heard differently that you expect or for certain themes to resonate with your audience in surprising ways.  However, you want to be careful that God’s word and spiritual truth are not being lost in translation. 

A friend of mine once told me of an experience he had of sharing about the “Parable of the Sower” in an African agricultural context.  He spoke of the seeds falling on different kinds of soils and producing different results.  The women who were listening completely missed the point of the story, “Well, isn’t that just what happens when you send a man to sow the seeds? He’ll never be careful, just throwing seeds all over the place!”

Noah in Cross-Cultural Context (Pt.2): Making the Text Come Alive

Today, I want to continue to share my reflections from my recently completed 2-part message on the story of Noah and the Flood from Genesis 6-10 at TriEak Parmeshwar Mandali (TPM), the Nepali-speaking church that I pastor in the Chicago area. 

Making the Text Come Alive

After setting up the story and communicating the context, I moved into the actual story-telling itself.  My method for doing this was to select individuals from the audience to basically act out (improvisationally) the narrative as I shared it.  This has become a pretty common approach for me at TPM.  Generally, everyone likes this very interactive and entertaining approach.  Of course, now I hear the faint echo of those who would say, “We shouldn’t be trying to entertain people in church.  We need to just teach the Word of God with clarity and authority.”  And, I hear what those people are saying.  However, my priority is to communicate the content of the Bible effectively.  And that means that I need to do all I can to draw people into the message itself.  If my listeners are bored or if they simply can’t get a grasp on the text because I’m telling the story poorly, I’m just not living up to my calling as a preacher of the Word.  It matters very little for me to personally have a correct, thorough, and orthodox understanding of the text if I communicate it badly.

In cross-cultural preaching, it isn’t enough to simply trade in 3-point sermons for chronological-Bible-story sets.  We must strive to be good story-tellers.  I’ve been greatly influenced for several years by something that I read from Martin Luther (I’ll have to find the reference later as I loaned out my copy of Protestant Spiritual Traditions).  Luther was talking about preaching as a “sacramental” duty – that the preacher’s task was to essentially make the Word of God “take on flesh” for the people.  I take this sacramental duty quite seriously as I seek to “enfleshen” the Scripture before the people week by week.  To be honest, I didn’t feel we were all that successful in this with the Noah story.  Nevertheless, in general the use of improvisational actors from the congregation has been effective in doing this.

Of course, drama isn’t the only good way to accomplish the goal of making the Biblical message come alive.  We’ve done other things as well.  But these are my reflections on preaching Noah, right.  So let me stay focused.  Specifically with this story, I selected (right in the middle of the message) a Noah, his three sons, and the wives of each (this last part was good for a corporate giggle, but I would be more careful if I were basically unfamiliar with the crowd).  I had costumes (very simple, but interesting) that I was able to slip onto the characters and a few props.  We quickly designated an area of the room as the “construction site” and moved my actors to that place.  All the rest of the congregation were also in the story, playing the role of the corrupt generation in which Noah lived.  Thus, as the story unfolded, everyone had a role to play.  Everyone was caught up in the narrative.

Getting everyone involved isn’t always possible, but some of our most effective stories have been the ones in which we’ve been able to do this.  The result is that no one is simply hearing or even watching a story about Jesus.  They are living it out, experiencing it as it unfolds before them. 

Okay, that’s all for now.  More tomorrow.

Noah in Cross-Cultural Context (Pt.1): Communicating Corruption

I recently completed a 2-part message (or series) on the story of Noah and the Flood from Genesis 6-10 at TriEak Parmeshwar Mandali (TPM), the Nepali-speaking church that I pastor in the Chicago area.  Over the next couple days or so, let me post here some of the thoughts I’ve had on the text and some reflections on my process of teaching this story in a cross-cultural context to Hindu-background Bhutanese and Nepalis with little to no prior experience with the Bible.

Noah’s story comes towards the end of an extended series of messages that I’ve been preaching at TPM that have taken us through the first 11 chapters of the Genesis.  Nearly all of my hearers have had no prior exposure to the content of Genesis, so we’ve been charting new territory.  I’m not going to take the time here to go back through the previous stories that we’ve encountered (for tips on Chronological Bible Storying click here).  I’ll just mention that I have been careful to explain how this particular story relates to the broader Biblical context and story of redemption.  We’ve made use of the “bible-storying cloth” as a helpful visual aid for this.

Communicating the Concept of Corruption Cross-Culturally

After setting up the context, I described the world of Noah as that of increasing population and increasing wickedness (दुष्टता).  The Biblical text (Gen. 6:11) describes a world of corruption, filled with violence (पृथ्वी भष्ट बएको र उपद्रवले भरिएको थियो). I felt that it was important to give special emphasis to a “world filled with violence” to my Bhutanese-Nepali refugee audience that didn’t need to be convinced of the evil of violence.  Prior to preaching, I was concerned that some might be troubled with the way God judged the earth in the days of Noah.  However, once they took time to consider a “world filled with violence”, they needed little convincing that God should indeed judge such a world.  This was great because it isn’t uncommon to encounter resistance when speaking to people from Hindu backgrounds about sin and God’s desire to punish it.  For my Bhutanese-Nepali audience however, their intimate experience with the evil of violence actually provided them with a unique handle on the Noah story and what it says about the nature of God.

In stressing this, I was able to basically introduce this as a story of God’s judgment against sin in the midst of which was a beautiful act of salvation.  My point today being that a typical stumbling block to the Noah story was avoided by honing in on a particular form of evil that both appeared in the Biblical text and resonated with my audience.  For me, this proved another encouraging affirmation that the better I understand my audience, the more effectively I’ll be able to communicate to them the Word of God.